Tongues Of Angels The Concept Of Angelic Languages In Classical Jewish And Christian Texts

Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars

Pneuma 33 (2011) 427-466

Book Reviews

John C. Poirier, Te Tongues of Angels: Te Concept of Angelic Languages in Classical Jewish and Christian Texts, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.287 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). xii + 224 pp. $105.00 paper.

John Poirier’s monograph on angelic languages aims to answer one question in particular: What language do angels speak? In the Jewish and Christian literature from antiquity that he surveys (covering roughly the second century BCE to the seventh century CE), Poirier finds two main answers: Hebrew or an esoteric heavenly language. For this latter category of texts, Poirier also explores a secondary question: When the angelic language is esoteric, do humans participate in it? Chapter 1, the introduction, sets up the primary question of what language angels speak and addresses the challenges of sifting through the ancient materials (especially pseudepigrapha and rabbinic works). Chapters 2 and 3 survey the texts that argue angels speak Hebrew (or that Hebrew is the language of heaven), and chapters 4 and 5 cover the literature that argues for, or may imply, an esoteric heavenly language. Chapter 6 is the conclusion.

Te book moves generally from more certain to less certain evidence, which is the reason Poirier gives for addressing the Hebrew-language theory first, starting in chapter 2. While the main evidence here is Jewish (in particular Jubilees and two parallel passages from the Babylonian Talmud), Poirier also examines two minor Christian texts, followed by an excursus on why references to angels speaking Hebrew are rare in early Christian sources. He notes that while the evidence for the Hebrew-language theory is more sparing, it is also more widespread and represents the mainstream view that eventually emerged from Pales- tinian Judaism.

After addressing Hebrew as the language of heaven, the book turns in chapter 3 to a matter more of this earth: the sociological reasons behind rabbinic arguments for Hebrew (rather than Aramaic) as the heavenly tongue. Te thesis of this chapter is that the third- century CE rabbis who emphasized the angels speak Hebrew did so because Hebrew was at that point a language studied and understood primarily by the synagogue leadership. If the angels could only understand Hebrew and not the common Aramaic of the people, then the rabbis — the only people with the necessary language skills to provide communication with heaven — would have greater control over prayer and other religious activities. Poirier thus points out that some texts may have earthly motivations for suggesting a particular heavenly language.

Chapter 4 turns to the theory that angels speak an esoteric heavenly language, dealing first with the “fairly certain cases.” Te New Testament evidence (1 Cor. 13:1; 12:1-7) comes first, followed by several pseudepigraphal works and some rabbinic and patristic

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/157007411X602844

1

428

Book Reviews / Pneuma 33 (2011) 427-466

evidence. While these texts weigh in similarly that angels speak an esoteric language, they vary considerably on whether and to what extent humans can participate in angelic speech. Chapter 5 turns then to the “less certain cases”; these are texts that Poirier feels likely, rather than definitely, refer to esoteric angelic language but that he deems worth consideration. Tese include the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from Qumran, additional rabbinic evidence (from Genesis Rabbah), a Montanist epitaph, and a liturgical text. Again, Poirier finds a variety of opinions on whether humans can participate in the esoteric angelic tongue.

While chapter 6, the conclusion, summarizes the entire book, it gives a great deal of space to revisiting the sociological rabbinic issue from chapter 3, as well as how that relates to the rabbinic evidence that argues for an esoteric heavenly language. Following the con- clusion are two appendixes. Te first addresses in greater detail some of the rabbinic evi- dence from chapter 4. Te second appendix offers “A Partial Response” to the argument put forth by Christopher Forbes (Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and Its Hel- lenistic Environment, 1995) that Christian glossolalia involves primarily, if not exclusively, human languages. Poirer reduces Forbes’ argument to three main points and dismantles each one in turn. Te thrust of Poirer’s rebuttal is that, contrary to what Forbes asserts, Acts 2 is not normative for all Christian glossolalia, and the significance of angeloglossy cannot be dismissed or diminished simply because it is mentioned in the New Testament only in 1 Corinthians 13:1.

Poirier’s book is definitely a scholarly monograph, often including Greek and unpointed Hebrew (along with English translations). Its chief purpose is to survey the literature rather than to argue for a particular thesis based on that material. Chapter 3 stands out as a diver- gence and perhaps a distraction from this structure, especially through the substantial space given to it in the conclusion, but this secondary argument is clearly not the focus of the book. Tis study’s greatest contribution, as the author himself notes (145), is its collection in one place of all texts and references on the subject of the language of angels. Te book also offers an evaluation of whether various texts are Jewish or Christian. It concludes with an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources (the last 60 pages are bibliog- raphy and indexes). Tis monograph therefore would provide a good starting point for future studies that desire to dig deeper into particular texts surveyed here.

Reviewed by Amy M. Donaldson

Associate Editor

Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan [email protected]

2